MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. Western countries should prove they don’t have aggressive plans toward Russia, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Rossiya-24 television on Wednesday.
She said Western countries started to demand that Moscow prove it doesn’t intend to attack anyone.
"Moscow has proven that everything they published and stated was a fake," the diplomat said. "Let’s now take a different angle. Let them now prove they don’t have intentions to take aggressive actions toward our country or any other country."
"We see the expansion of NATO; we see an increase in military forces along the perimeter of our borders, on the territory of the countries that aren’t home to these forces," she went on to say. "We see aggressive and inappropriate narrative. We see exits from most of the agreements that restrain, bind and guarantee strategic stability and security."
"All that allows us today to demand that they give guarantees of our security and proof that they are not going to attack anyone," Zakharova said.
On January 26, the US and NATO submitted their written responses to the proposals for security assurances. The US asked that the texts of these documents not be made public, but US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg outlined their main provisions. According to these statements, the West did not make concessions that were crucial for Russia, but set out areas for further talks.